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Jack Arnold was born on a kitchen table in New Haven, Connecticut, to Russian immigrant parents.[2]:53 As a child he read a lot of science fiction, which laid the foundations for his genre films of the 1950s.

While Arnold intended to become a pilot, a shortage of planes meant he was temporarily placed in the Signal Corps, where he took a crash course in cinematography. He then became a cameraman and learned the techniques of filmmaking by assisting Robert Flaherty on various military films.[3] After eight months with Flaherty he became a pilot in the Air Corps.[2]:53 While stationed at Truax Airfield at New Rochelle, New York, he met Betty, who would later become his wife.

At the war's end and Arnold's term of service ended, he formed a partnership with an air squadron buddy Lee Goodman to form a film production company. Their new company, called Promotional Films Company, made fundraising films for various non-profit organizations. He also continued acting on stage during this period, in plays including a revival of The Front Page, and played opposite Bela Lugosi and Elaine Stritch in Three Indelicate Ladies.[2]:54

"Jack Arnold dominated the science fiction field during his brief career. No imprint lingers so indelibly on the face of modern fantasy film as that of this obscure yet brilliant artist. All his films, no matter how tawdry, were marked with a brilliant personal vision. He exists as an éminence grise on the horizon of fantasy film, inscrutable, mysterious, almost impossible both to analyse and to ignore."